Harvard students invent a cake made from a spray can

Crave some cake but don't have time to make it from scratch? Now a patent-pending invention will let you simply spray one out of a can.

Called Spray Cake, the idea was whipped by Harvard juniors John McCallum and Brooke Nowakowski.

“When I put it in my mouth, my first thought was, this is cake, this is cake! "

— Brooke Nowakowski, Spray Cake creator

McCallum says he thought of the idea his freshman year in his Science & Cooking class.

“It hit me…the quote-end-quote Eureka moment. And I thought maybe you can use a whipped cream can to cause a cake to rise. And sure enough, you can and from that point on spray cake was born,” he said.

Spray Cake uses an aerosol spray --similar to whipped cream --to release air bubbles into the batter that replicates the leavening process, making baking soda or powder obsolete. All you need to do is spray the batter a pan, and place the pan in a microwave for sixty seconds --and you have fresh cake ready for the frosting.

McCallum says that getting the recipe just right was a process of trial and error, but it tasted great during the process. “Because it is just cake batter…and just changed the proportions of certain ingredients….it came out tasting great the first time and it was awesome.”

Nowakowski, McCallum’s business partner and girlfriend, says that when she first tried spray cake she couldn’t believe it tasted just like regular cake. “When I put it in my mouth, my first thought was, this is cake, this is cake! And I had to ask him…did you actually spray this out of a can or did you just pour this in a pan?”

They even used their fellow classmates as guinea pigs as tasters throughout the development process, and Nowakowski says they loved every bite.

Spray Cake uses an organic batter made from scratch, even the can is made from recyclable materials. Nowakowski says that sustainability and reducing waste is an important part of their product.

“They would honestly like a world where they could spray it into their mouths. We wouldn’t recommend that, it’s just like cake batter.”

The product is not available at your local grocer, yet. McCallum says the final step is finding the right manufacturing partner to produce Spray Cake.

Hillary Vaughn is a correspondent for FOX News Channel and FOX Business Network and is based in Los Angeles, CA.
Twitter: @vaughnFNC